A few of the men told stories of excellent spice, but some were as loathsome to his mood as one of the worm-eaten walnuts that he bit into before he realized its estate. He had no stomach for Harry Chalender’s gabble, and found nothing but impudence and bad taste in the problem Chalender posed to poor old Dr. Chirnside. Harry said that he had made a ghastly mistake. In talking to a well-bred young female who had snubbed him for insulting her by offering to help her on with her shawl, he had somehow let slip the obscene word, “corsets.” The young lady pretended not to have understood, but blenched in silence.
An old lady who overheard him, however, told him that she was old enough to advise him to apologize for the slip. He promised rashly, but was at his wit’s end for the procedure.
“I appeal to you, Dr. Chirnside,” he said, “for spiritual help. How shall I apologize to that young gazelle for using the word ‘corsets’ in her presence—without once more using the word ‘corsets’ in her presence?”
Dr. Chirnside took refuge in offended dignity, stated that a word unfit for the female ear was equally unfit for the ear of a gentleman. He choked on a last gulp of port, and moved to the drawing room with more rectitude in his head than his legs.
Chalender was rebuked by a solemn gentleman who regretted the increasing indelicacy of manners. If women’s innocence were not protected where would human society look for safety?
“My wife had a most shocking experience recently,” he said. “We sent our daughter to Mrs. Willard’s school at Troy and what do you suppose they taught that poor child, sir? I should not have believed it if my wife had not told me. She could never have believed it if she had not seen it with her own eyes.
“A woman teacher, a most unwomanly teacher, drew on a blackboard, sir, pictures of the internal organs of women, the heart, the arteries, and the veins! Yes, sir, by God, sir, she did! My wife and several mothers who chanced to be visiting the classroom rose in their indignation and left the room. They were too shocked to command their daughters to violate the discipline of the school. But I shall withdraw my daughter from such precincts, I assure you. Is nothing to be sacred? Is everything to be spoken of openly in these atheistic times? I ask you, sir, I ask you!”
Chalender winked at RoBards while the old gentleman’s tears of wrath salted his port. Chalender wailed, “But nobody tells me how to apologize for saying corsets.” He was incorrigible.
RoBards felt that his own predicament was as silly as Chalender’s, yet it was of equal torment. How could he rid himself of Mr. Webster? How could he endure his ponderous association?
The giant grew less and less awesome as he absorbed more and more liquor. RoBards began to hope that all memory of his pledge to Patty might be lost in the enormous ache which that enormous head would feel the next morning.